Love and family surround Portland woman on what's likely her last Christmas

Ross William Hamilton/The OregonianFamily members surround Lois Braunschweiger, 87, as they help her open gifts on Christmas Day. Braunschweiger is in the end states of Alzheimer’s. She and her daughter, Debbie Schulz, have shared a house in Southeast Portland for two decades, part of the time with Schulz’s two children. “She’s been my partner, and I’m going to miss our partnership,” Schulz said. “It was a houseful of girls.” This most likely was Lois Braunschweiger's last Christmas. Alzheimer's has sapped her of speech, movement and much of her awareness. But on Friday morning, her house swirled with life: Dogs yelping, bread pudding baking, grandchildren opening presents.

Braunschweiger's daughter, Debbie Schulz, tried to get her to try some pudding.

"It's got cinnamon and nutmeg in it," she said, gently spooning some into Braunschweiger's mouth.

For the past two years, this has been Schulz's life: watching her 87-year-old mother, a pastor's wife, slowly decline into a childlike state. The woman who taught students to read by giving them comic books, who started painting in her 60s, who refused to wear black when her husband died, now uses a wheelchair and is awake for only a few hours a day.

But Schulz pressed on with the holiday. She baked hundreds of cookies, put up the plastic reindeer and strung lights through the bushes, got out the red and green tablecloth her mother loves and unpacked the Nativity scene they painted together years ago. Her mother always made a big deal out of Christmas. They've spent 54 of them together. "You don't get to always choose what things happen, but you shouldn't stop celebrating when things are out of your control," Schulz said Friday. "It's hard, but it's a blessing to be here."

Schulz is her mother's full-time caregiver. She has help from hospice workers, a chaplain and a social worker. Hospice patients typically die within six months; Braunschweiger has lived much longer. During the vice presidential debates last year, she looked at Sarah Palin on TV and said, "She doesn't have a chance." But she told Schulz she felt as if she was stuck in the past.

Hospice

What: Hospice care is available for those with an illness likely to end their life within six months. The philosophy is to treat the entire person. A hospice team includes doctors, nurses, hospice aides, social workers, chaplains, counselors and trained volunteers. The team manages the patient’s pain, provides emotional support, coaches loved ones on how to care for the patient and provides medications, medical supplies and other equipment.

Learn more: Go to www.oregonhospice.org or call the Oregon Hospice Association at 503-228-2104 or 888-229-2104.

Nearly half of Oregonians on Medicare are under hospice care when they die, compared with 36 percent nationwide.

Oregon ranks fourth in the nation for hospice use.

More than half of Oregonians choose to die at home with hospice rather than in the hospital or other location, compared with 42 percent nationwide.

Oregonians spend half as many days in the intensive care unit near the end of life as people across the nation.

Nearly 100 percent of Oregonians in hospice have completed a Physician Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment, which is based on their conversation with their doctor, nurse practitioner or physician assistant about what treatments they want and don’t want at the end of their lives.

Schulz thought last Christmas would surely be her mother's final one. They even took a family portrait. Yet Braunschweiger hung on.

"It's not the right time yet," Schulz said. "I think maybe there's some story that needs to be told, a lesson that needs to be learned."

On Friday, the family clustered around Braunschweiger to open gifts. Stephanie Reed, her 22-year-old granddaughter, handed her a Christmas ornament. It was a cardinal, "because you're from St. Louis," Schulz said. A low murmur, almost a laugh, escaped from her mother's body.

"Merry Christmas, Grandma," Reed said, kissing her softly.

The next present, from Schulz and her husband, Jeff, was a tube of hand lotion. "I'll let you smell this," Schulz said, rubbing some on to Braunschweiger's hand. "One is petals and the other is pear and strawberry. Do you like how that smells?"

Granddaughter Jennifer Robinson and her husband, Terry, gave Braunschweiger a picture of Jennifer in her wedding dress. She was married in September, wearing a necklace that Braunschweiger's husband, Fred, had bought her for Valentine's Day one year. Fred died in 1979. When Schulz's second marriage broke up, she and her young daughters moved into Braunschweiger's house in Southeast Portland. That was 20 years ago, and Schulz has been there ever since.

"This is the way it used to be," she said. "People were born in their house, they died in their house, they raised kids. This feels right. It would not feel right to put her somewhere."

Hospice volunteer Paula Negele has known the family for two years. When she began stopping by every Saturday, Braunschweiger could have glazed doughnuts and coffee for breakfast and chat about the first time she tried an avocado. She joked about losing her memory.

Now, all Negele does is talk to Braunschweiger and play music. For the last few weeks, she has brought cedar boughs for her to sniff and has run pine needles over her hands. Christmas is coming, she told her.

"I said, 'Lois, are you done here?' and she said, 'No.'" Negele said.

In the last month or so, Braunschweiger has reached the end stages of life: low breathing, blood pressure dropping. She talked about her husband as if he were still alive. She said she saw angels.

Schulz gathered photos for the funeral home to display and wrote her mother's eulogy. It mentions that Braunschweiger loved to throw parties and took in hundreds of young people who needed help. It says that she truly enjoyed life and loved to celebrate it.

Schulz still can't let her mother go.

What if her mother could talk? What would she say?

Schulz paused. Her eyes filled with tears.

"I'm sure she'd be offering food," she said. "She'd say, 'It's good to be here. We have room and food to share.'"